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Excavations at Crispin Street, Spitalfields: from Roman Cemetery to Post-Medieval Artillery Ground

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Excavations at Crispin Street, Spitalfields: from Roman Cemetery to Post-Medieval Artillery Ground EXCAVATIONS AT CRISPIN STREET, SPITALFIELDS: FROM ROMAN CEMETERY TO POST-MEDIEVAL ARTILLERY GROUND Berni Sudds and Alistair Douglas with Christopher Phillpotts† With contributions by John Brown, Natasha Dodwell, Märit Gaimster, James Gerrard, Chris Jarrett, Malcolm Lyne, Quita Mould, Kathelen Sayer, John Shepherd and Lisa Yeomans SUMMARY which was evidenced by the discovery of an early 18th- century cattle horn core lined cesspit. There was also This article describes archaeological investigations indirect evidence for clay tobacco pipe manufacture undertaken by Pre-Construct Archaeology Ltd on land locally during c.1660 to 1680. off Crispin Street, Spitalfields, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. A total of 36 Roman inhumation INTRODUCTION burials dating from the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, forming part of the extra-mural cemetery alongside The site lies to the north-east of the City of Ermine Street were identified. Unusual burials includ- London within Spitalfields and is bounded ed a decapitated individual. to the north by housing fronting on to During the late 13th century the site was bisected by Brushfield Street and to the east, south and the outer precinct boundary of the Priory and Hospital west by Crispin Street, Artillery Lane and of St Mary Spital. This boundary which was delin- Gun Street respectively (NGR TQ 3355 8170; eated by a ditch and bank was to remain extant in one site code CPN01) (Figs 1 & 2). In advance form or another on roughly the same alignment until of proposed redevelopment Pre-Construct the present development. Just prior to the Dissolution Archaeology Ltd was commissioned to in 1538 a brick wall was constructed around the outer undertake archaeological investigations precinct, which was leased to the Guild of Artillery of on site by the Manhattan Loft Corporation Longbows, Crossbows and Handguns for the purpose Ltd and Osbourne Group. The area of of artillery practice. By the late 17th century the first archaeological impact was c.1,750m², with houses were constructed along Crispin Street, backing a proposed formation level at 2.4m below on to the precinct known by then as the Artillery the current ground level at approximately Ground. Soon afterwards the Ground was sold off and 10.90m OD. developed with new housing. The Tudor wall remained, Excavation of the site took place during forming the rear boundary between the houses fronting 2001 (Areas 1—6, Fig 2) and 2003 (Area 7). on to Crispin Street and Gun Street, but was subject Changes to the original development plan to much subsequent alteration. As elsewhere in the resulted in an increased impact on the Spitalfields area the site remained largely residential archaeological resource to the north of the into the 19th century, but it also formed the focus for site and in the south-west corner. As a result a variety of trades and light industries throughout groundworks in these areas were monitored the post-medieval period, including horn working, by an archaeological watching brief during 1 2 Berni Sudds and Alistair Douglas with Christopher Phillpotts Fig 1. Site location (scale 1:25,000) December 2004 to February 2005 (Areas 8 & 9). This article uses the Museum of London codes for ceramics and building materials. Complete lists of these codes, their expan- sions and date ranges are available online.1 Further information on the excavations identified by their site codes can be ob- tained from the Museum of London Arch- aeological Archive and Research Centre online catalogue. The historical research for this article was undertaken by the late Christopher Phillpotts. GEOLOGY AND TOPOGRAPHY The site lies on the Taplow Thames Gravel Terrace, which is overlain by brickearth, known as the Langley Silts (British Geological Survey 1993). The area is fairly flat, although there is a slight slope southwards towards the river Thames. The level of the gravel was found to range from a high in the north of 10.76m OD to a low in the south of 10.02m OD. The brickearth survived to a maximum height of c.12.0m OD to the north of the site with Fig 2. Location of the various areas of archaeological investigation (scale 1:1000) Excavations at Crispin Street, Spitalfields: From Roman Cemetery to Post-Medieval Artillery Ground 3 a thickness of 1.24m, but had been subject John Stow, the Tudor historian, recorded to truncation elsewhere. The level on the that when ‘a large field, of old time called brickearth is approximately a metre higher Lolesworth, now Spittlefield; which in than generally reported in the area. The about 1576 was broken up for clay to make reason for this discrepancy is not known bricks’ many ceramic cremation vessels, but may be related to a local variation in some containing early Roman coins, were topography or simply better preservation. discovered during quarrying. Other finds included inhumations, some of which were ARCHAEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND interred in stone coffins (Stow 1603, 152— 3). These Roman burials described by Stow The site lies to the east of the former formed part of the northern cemetery, which line of Ermine Street, the major Roman lay on either side of Ermine Street, where road heading north out of Londinium via more than 200 burials have been recorded Bishopsgate. Under Roman law burial (Barber & Hall 2000) (Fig 3). Unfortunately of the dead within town boundaries was many of these discoveries are unpublished forbidden giving rise to the practice of (Barber & Hall 2000; Hall 1996). Of the more burying alongside roads leading away from recent excavations, those undertaken during the main focus of occupation. In London 1998—1999 in the area of Spitalfields Market significant extra-mural Roman cemeteries to the north produced the single largest have been discovered adjacent to the main recorded sample of the northern cemetery roads leading north, east, south and west with reportedly up to 144 burials (Swift 2003, from Londinium (Barber & Bowsher 2000; 24). Another 36 late Roman burials from Beard & Cowan 1988; Bentley & Pritchard Devonshire Square, Houndsditch, have been 1982; Hall 1996; Langton 1990; Mackinder published (Sankey & Connell 2007). 2000; Ridgeway et al 2013; Sankey & Connell Several of these sites have demonstrated 2007; Shepherd 1988; Swift 2003; Thomas that Spitalfields area was not used exclusively et al 1997, 11—13; Watson 2003; Whytehead for burial (Holder 1997; Swift 2003; Thomas 1986). et al 1997). During the early Roman period Fig 3. The location and extent of the northern Roman cemetery flanking Ermine Street (scale 1:12,500) 4 Berni Sudds and Alistair Douglas with Christopher Phillpotts it was also being used to quarry brickearth sloping concave sides falling to a slightly and gravel. In the late Roman period, concave base and was filled with a clayey silt contemporary with the most prolific period producing a small sherd of local mica-dusted of burial, there is evidence from Spital pottery. The ditch continued beyond the Square for a ditched enclosure, indicating northern and western limits of excavation. that some areas were being set aside for Where exposed it measured in excess of other functions (Thomas et al 1997, 11—13). 2.50m in width and 1.00m in depth, which Indeed, the identification of ditches, drains, suggests it represented a significant feature surfaces and possible beam slot buildings in within the landscape. the vicinity have been taken to be indicative Although potentially earlier in origin, the of ribbon development (Swift 2003, 8). pottery suggests the ditch went out of use during the late 1st or early 2nd century AD. PRE-CEMETERY ROMAN ACTIVITY A pit, containing pottery dated from c.AD (LATE 1st—EARLY 2nd CENTURIES AD) 70 to 120 (P3; see ‘The Roman cemetery’ below) truncated the backfilled ditch. It is The earliest evidence of activity on site was possible that this ditch represents an early represented by a large ditch and two pits Roman boundary dividing the landscape truncating the brickearth. The ditch was in for agriculture or for the exploitation of the far north-west corner, orientated north- the natural resources. Similar features east to south-west (Fig 4). The cut had were identified in the eastern cemetery (Barber & Bowsher 2000, 298). As several of these ditches survived to form cemetery plot boundaries, however, it has also been suggested that at least some of them may have been laid out from the beginning to demarcate areas set aside for burial (ibid). At Crispin Street there may be some degree of overlap in dating between the ditch and cemetery, with a couple of the burials pertaining to the early 2nd century AD (B15 & B21). Even if the very earliest burials were interred whilst the ditch was still open, or the possibility is considered that the pottery from the backfill and Pit 3 was residual when deposited, then for the boundary to have gone out of use the cemetery would have continued to function for its fills to have been cut by any of the burials. The exact route of Ermine Street has yet to be established, although current evidence suggests it is likely to have run on roughly the same alignment as Bishopsgate Street (Swift 2003, 21; Thomas et al 1997, 13). Evidence for a further road, running east through Spitalfields, has also been found to the north at 282—294 Bishopsgate (BOS87) (Thomas et al 1997, 13). This would place the ditch at some distance to the south and east of known main roads. Taken together with the evidence for an early backfill and the truncation by later burials it is likely Fig 4. Pre-cemetery features; Ditch 1 and Pits 1 and the ditch was dug for another purpose. 2, showing their found and conjectured extents (scale As suggested above this may have been to 1:625) divide or enclose the land for quarrying Excavations at Crispin Street, Spitalfields: From Roman Cemetery to Post-Medieval Artillery Ground 5 or agriculture, a division that subsequently the presence of intrusive finds including two became redundant when the area became French jettons dating to the 14th and 15th a cemetery.
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